From drawing a dinosaur to falling asleep at his desk, Scott Adams shares notes from his week.

My alarm goes off at 5 a.m. Sleep is for the lazy. Coffee in hand and looking good in my pajamas, I'm at my home-office computer by 5:10 a.m. I keep this routine every day of the week. Today I must write a blog post, create two "Dilbert" comics, edit a pitch deck for my startup, CalendarTree.com, and handle several hours of soul-destroying tax issues. If time allows, I'll finish the humorous article I started writing about graduation gifts as a way to goose interest in my latest book. Why did I think it was a good idea to write a book, launch a startup, blog regularly, restart my speaking career, and work as a syndicated cartoonist at the same time? I've been called a dangerous combination of productive and stupid. That seems fair.

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ENLARGE

Peter Arkle

It's halfway through the morning and I've fallen asleep at my desk three times (literally). I plan to double-down on my caffeine intake and power through some more work until I head to the gym at lunchtime. I just hope nothing else comes up today.

The Wall Street Journal just emailed to ask if I would write a diary piece for them. Sigh. Yes.

But first I must solve some tax paperwork issues, lawyer issues, and my blocked credit card issue. I was disappointed to learn that the job of a cartoonist is mostly paperwork. I had hoped it would be more about drawing stuff.

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I planted tomatoes in the backyard. And by that I mean my assistant planted tomatoes in the dirt that my gardener delivered. I call myself a gentleman farmer.

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I noticed that the neighborhood snails were massing their forces near my garden and I needed to defend my territory. My friend with Midwestern roots assures me that I can solve this problem by putting a plate of beer in the garden. Apparently snails like beer, but it kills them. Interestingly, it's the only thing snails do quickly. I've been trying to kill myself with beer for decades. I am literally slower than a snail.

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I'm addicted to Google Analytics. Google Analytics lets you see exactly how many people are on your website and what they are doing. Each user is shown as a dot on a world map. Sometimes I stare at the map and imagine I have magic powers. When a new dot appears I'm sure I caused it.

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Today I drew a comic of a dinosaur that is sort of a mascot for CalendarTree. When people ask what I do for the startup, I'm going to mention the dinosaur sketch because everything else I do involves pushing paper around and cursing the government for making my life unnecessarily complicated. I always promised myself I wouldn't become a grumpy old white guy who hates the government, but as time passes, that lifestyle choice just makes sense.

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CBS emailed to ask if I would do an interview about the history of cubicles. I said yes because there are few things more fascinating than rectangular containers in which you can sit. I'm having flashbacks of my old corporate life and how I taught myself to sleep in my chair in my cubicle by keeping my head balanced just right so it wouldn't droop over mid-snooze. It wasn't an easy trick to learn, and I woke up screaming a few times halfway between the chair and the floor. But it was worth the hard work and dedication to get it right. If you haven't experienced the pleasure of getting paid to nap, consider changing jobs.

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This year I gave up on using to-do lists because there were so many things to do that it was no longer practical to keep the list updated. Now I use a simpler system that depends on my frustrated colleagues asking me if I saw an email about something I was supposed to do. I reply that it's next on my list. Then I do it next. I'm officially a bad person now. The transformation was alarmingly seamless.

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Today my lawyer sent me some documents that have no functional use, and yet the government requires that I get them signed. Sometimes I think this country needs two governments. The second government's only job would be to actively prevent the first government from needlessly annoying the citizens. The system would be twice as expensive in the beginning, but I think we'd come out ahead in the long run.

—Mr. Adams is the creator of "Dilbert," author of "How to Fail at Everything and Still Win Big" and co-founder of CalendarTree.com.

I am a daily reader of Dilbert, and enjoy the repartee between the characters. However, much like Hollywood movies which I rarely watch anymore, Scott Adams has fallen in with the crowd that thinks business owners, CEOs and managers are inept, bumbling idiots, who but for the grace of God would be in jail or pushing a broom in a warehouse. I would guess 8 out of 10 strips have this theme. There are plenty of human interactions occurring in an office, on a date, travelling or hanging out at the park which illustrate human foibles without being mean. It just takes some creativity, which is like work for a cartoonist. It seems like too many times, Wally... I mean Scott... thinks showing up and jerking the chain of the PHB is "work."

Many years ago during my Naval Aviation career there was a cartoon character created by the Naval Aviation Safety organization whose name was Dilbert. He was a buffoon of the highest order; always doing something that was unsafe and laughable.

We disagree. I don't dislike "Dilbert" per se, as far as the individual strips go. But I dislike that he hasn't done a thing after 20 years to get out of his predicament. He has embraced the status quo. If you don't see that, you are not seeing the whole picture. But go ahead and chuckle at how he remains a loser each week, along with those real corporate employees for whom he is a proxy.

I submit that "Dilbert" was not like other comic strips, exactly because it was not just supposed to be funny, but was supposed to be a dig at corporate management. But by now, as I have stated, it's an impotent form of coping, and has bounced right off of corporate management, which hasn't changed.

True, however Dilbert is a depressing character by now, still seeking minor victories in a cubicle world 20 years on. Adams should have ended "Dilbert" a decade ago, having him marry and then make a career switch away from the corporate world. Instead, Dilbert remains mired in the trappings of the office environment, and has become unsympathetic because he just keeps taking it, year after year, unsuccessfully trying to combat it with wit. (I actually stopped reading "Dilbert" many years ago, because of what I just wrote, but every now and then I'll stumble onto a fresh "Dilbert" strip, which validates my suspicion.)

Books that are already 15-20 years old ("The Way of the Weasel", "The Dogbert Principle", etc) made all of Adams's points, but the corporate world seems to perpetuate itself, and has not improved as a result of the publication of those works.

To Scott Adams, if you read this, I would suggest shifting your creative focus away from "Dilbert". Your cartoon character became stale long ago. Dilbert has lost, by his mere continued presence in the cubicle world. He's an annoying reminder, and not a comfort, to anyone else who might still be in that world.

Daniel, I'm not saying that "Dilbert" isn't usually funny. I'm saying that any larger purpose has been lost along the way. For the first decade (approximately), the funniness was like a victory for corporate workers. Now, the funniness is "smaller", part of the capitulation of corporate workers, simply because no matter how funny, Dilbert is still there, in the same predicament.

What Scott Adams does, he does well. Dilbert is a universal character, like Major Hoople and Charlie Brown. Funny through the ages. Not for everyone perhaps -- after all, there's no accounting for taste, but funny for most of us. Dan

Richard, well, that is rather the point of a comic strip. Major Hoople and Martha, Charlie Brown and Lucy (and the football) doing what they do best, over and over. Dan

PS I mention Major Hoople, he of "Our Boarding House," which was the first comics page strip I devoured, back in the 1950s Algrove Publishing recently reprinted the entire 1927 run, "Our Boarding House with Major Hoople," by the estimable Gene Ahern, the Scott Adams of his day. Ahern is still funny. (Or so I believe.)

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